


Safehouse

by hauntedjaeger (saellys)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Marvel Avengers Fusion, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Antagonism as Sexy Talk, Blow Jobs, Breathplay, Cunnilingus, F/M, Light Bondage, Metal Arm Kink, Multi, OT3, Porn with Feelings, Psychological Trauma, Threesome - F/M/M, mentions of childhood trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-01 22:49:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2790554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys/pseuds/hauntedjaeger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On their very best days, they can get close to sentiment, even tenderness. This isn’t a good day--this is a post-mission adrenaline crash and she does not need it to be any different from a dozen other times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [somethingsomething](https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingsomething/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Histories](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2781200) by [Confabulatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Confabulatrix/pseuds/Confabulatrix). 



> Confabulatrix's PacRim/MCU mashup tore my heart out of my chest and then replaced it with an arc reactor of feels. I was already planning a vignette in the same universe, but it just so happened that somethingsomething requested Chuck/Mako for the Pacific Rim Secret Santa, so this is doing double duty now. (It helps to read "Histories" first, but for the uninitiated, in this universe Mako is Black Widow and Chuck is the Winter Soldier.)
> 
> This fic references issue #8 of the current Black Widow run, but without the subplot of Natasha's memory loss because hell no, Mako has been through enough (andshealreadydoesn'trememberhalftheirrelationship); let's have porn instead!

Mako comes out of the bathroom, toweling her hair, to find Chuck half-asleep on the bed. This apartment is in Mako’s web--it’s supposed to be untraceable. _She’s_ supposed to be untraceable. But if anyone can do it, well, at least it’s a pleasant surprise, and she can’t complain about two of those in one evening.

He makes a small noise as the mattress shifts with her weight. The torpor has a little to do with the mission and a lot to do with the fact that until recently, Hydra put the Winter Soldier on ice after every job, and his body still expects hibernation. 

“You jumped onto a helicopter,” Mako accuses. She only caught a glimpse on her way out of the house; the briefcase was her job, the gang was his, so when he said he’d clear a path for her and told her to get out, she did.

“They _shot_ at you,” he says, awake enough to be aggrieved. Then, an afterthought: “Were you worried?”

Mako leans back against the headboard and casts her gaze heavenward. Technically, they’ve both done stupider things. “Serum and a robot arm won’t help you if you stick your head in the rotors.”

His grin flashes in the dark. “You were worried.” He rolls over, slings his right arm across her, presses his face into her side. “How’s the ankle?”

“It still works,” she says, rotating it. By the time she got in the shower, it had scabbed over. Chuck smoothes his hand over her waist and down, and Mako brings her knees up so he can more easily reach where the bullet grazed her. He touches it gently, a wound he didn’t give her, then settles his hand around the top of her left foot and presses the pad of his thumb into a sore spot he somehow knows is there on the inside of her ankle, just below the medial malleolus.

Mako breathes in silently, but Chuck’s brow rests against her ribs and of course he feels it, and in turn Mako feels the motion of his face as he smiles. He keeps a constant pressure until the pain fades to a slack warmth, and when Mako breathes out, he lets up but doesn’t let go. His mouth finds the place on her side where the hem of her black tank rode up against the pillows.

“I thought you were tired,” Mako sighs.

The act of shrugging his left shoulder jars the whole bed, but doesn’t change the position of his hand and his lips. “Are you?”

She has to admit she isn’t, and in answer and invitation, she straightens her right leg. He lets it slide under his arm, and then lifts his head. Mako grabs the top of the headboard reflexively as the bed dips--it’s extra firm, like all of Mako’s mattresses in all her safehouses, but Chuck has his left arm planted now, elbow digging deep into the sheet. He moves his lips against the crest of her hip, and then across, below her navel but above the band of her panties, then over those and down to her left thigh. That leg is still bent, and Chuck takes the opportunity to access the softer parts of her. Mako feels his teeth, and the breath she takes is not silent.

“Bring that back for _Rah_ leigh,” he says, and kisses the red mark that will certainly be purple by the time she gets home. Mako swats at his head and Chuck pushes himself away so he’s out of reach unless she wants to pull her right leg up and remove her left from his grasp, and she doesn’t want to do that right now, not at all.

For a moment, the only thing that moves is the snow falling outside. It reflects weak green-white light from the streetlamps through the window, and onto chrome and a smug-arse grin. Finally, Mako flexes her toes just enough that he’ll feel the extensors move under his hand. At once Chuck dips his head and uses his teeth again, lightly now, skimming low on her belly to catch on elastic and pull. Mako digs one heel and one calf into the mattress and lifts her hips just enough, and a moment later she feels the air stir with his breath.

“Mask’s on the floor,” Chuck whispers. “Should I put it on?”

Mako is half naked beneath him, but Chuck is the one in a compromising position. Her right knee settles under the corner of his jaw before he can react, pressing his stubbled cheek against the place he bit, just firmly enough that they’re both aware his windpipe is hers, if she wants it.

“Bring it back for Raleigh,” she says. Chuck licks his lips, then squeezes her foot--acknowledgment and agreement and asking for permission all in one. He isn’t usually the one getting choked. Mako relaxes her right leg again and says, “продолжить.”

The look he gives her before he sets his mouth to her cunt makes her wonder if he really intends to turn this into some kind of payback. But if anyone can--

She adjusts her grip on the headboard. He’s not moving anything but his mouth, and he’s _not playing around_. Of course he’s a vindictive shit. Of course he’s going to do whatever he has to do to get her off in record time. Of course he knows how, even if he’s not always sure how he knows. She’s not sure, either, how their hands (tongues, lips, teeth) find where they fit, make each other respond, with no involvement from their brains. (She’s sure; she just prefers not to think about it.)

Part of her doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction. The rest of her knows how pointless that impulse is, but that doesn’t mean she won’t put up a fight.

Chuck knows the pressure (hard) and the speed (slow, slow enough to feel the texture of his tongue) and what to do with his lips (use them, tug and sip at the end of every upstroke). Mako knows when he presses the spot on her ankle again that he needs her more open, and after a brief calculation of how much she wants him to work for this and how insufferable she can stand him being, she drops her bent knee to the mattress. Chuck rewards her with a long deep lick, after which he fixes his lips around her clit and hums a note near the bottom of his register.

He knows her, _goddamnit_ , he knows.

Mako doesn’t realize her eyes are closed until they snap open again at the sudden cold weight through the fabric of her tank. Usually she likes to watch him do this, knows he likes to be watched by the way he looks up to check and then looks down again and turns red from hairline to shoulders as if he actually has an ounce of shame in him, but on the occasions her attention slips, he has a convenient way to bring it back, and it works whether it’s on her breast or Raleigh’s throat.

Nothing keeps one in the moment quite like a Soviet weapon in a vulnerable place. No matter how long he has his palm there, the metal never warms.

It’s not like she can help herself (he knows). He smothers a laugh in her when her hips jerk. Mako grits her teeth at the sound and tells herself no, not yet, make him feel it in his jaw all the way back to New York, at least. She’s harder than this, even with all her secrets out, even with all he knows.

He lifts his palm, and the headboard squeaks when she eases her grip. The thumb of his right hand draws circles on her ankle. He dials down the pressure, and now the sweep of his tongue is lazy, like he heard her thoughts and he can do this all day, just watch him. He smacks his lips.

When she rocks her hips he pulls away, and she will not, she will _not_ whimper, she refuses. Chuck looks up at her, for once not smirking, just mild curiosity on his face as he reaches over and runs the tip of his left index finger once, gently, carefully, between her folds.

Mako shivers. She wants to swear at him in any of the five languages they both speak, but right now it feels like it wouldn’t do any good, like they only share one language and it doesn’t involve words. She lets go of the headboard and twists her fingers into his hair, pushes down.

Chuck doesn’t resist. He goes to with his original vigor, and Mako lets her head fall back, lets herself gulp air when his left hand chills her again, lets this happen and happen and continue to happen until it’s done and the sparks fade from her vision.

She lets go of his hair, and the instant he releases her ankle, she shoves her left knee into his shoulder and follows through. Her right arm swipes under his left, twists it off of her and down to the sheet, wrist under her forearm as she rises over him. He’s not pinned, far from it, but fortunately this is not a fight.

“That wasn’t terrible,” she says.

“I use what I’ve got.”

Mako says, “All you’ve got is mouth,” and she kisses it, tasting herself. She reaches behind with her free hand and finds him hard (of course; she knows him). She eases down and his eyelashes flutter, and Mako moves her hips, knows how to do this for (to) him as well as he does for (to) her. She wonders, sometimes, at just how little she has to do, at the simplicity of his needs, even with all the things they’ve done with (to, for) each other. Eye contact gets him halfway there; touch his face and he’s gone. Touch his arm--

She puts her left hand above his hip, uses her calves to push his knees together. She bites his bottom lip, not hard enough to bleed, but it will swell and for a little while he’ll look even more like he’s always sulking.

His hips lift, and his left hand fists in the sheet, and he _is_ fighting, she sees it in his eyes. Chuck takes a breath through his nose and reaches up with his free hand to pull her tank up over her head and down her arm, and she pulls her weight back from his wrist long enough to get it all the way off, and then she leans down again and his right hand is warm on her breast and he pinches, hard but not as hard as he would with the other hand, hoping, she’s sure, to make her hitch for a moment, but all she does is squeeze around him.

“M--”

Mako puts her tongue in his mouth. On their very best days, they can get close to sentiment, even tenderness. This isn’t a good day--this is a post-mission adrenaline crash and she does not need it to be any different from a dozen other times. She doesn’t need him to say her name; she wants him to come. And he does, shuddering, gasping into her mouth.

She sits back on her heels and looks down at him. There aren’t many opportunities to see his expression unguarded. This one passes quickly. “Wasn’t terrible,” he says, eyes heavy-lidded.

As Mako swings her leg over and pushes off the bed on his side, finds his undershirt on the floor and uses it to clean herself up, she can almost hear Raleigh. _Apologize to her. Jesus, the way you people talk to each other, I absolutely_ cannot _. I shouldn’t have to teach your ass to be grateful for one of the hottest things I’ve ever--_

She rounds the bed and gets back in on the mostly dry side. Chuck puts his arm over her again, drowsy and sweaty and possessive, and says, “When’s your flight?”

“Five.” Her alarm will buzz in three hours. She’d book him a seat next to her, but it's hard to get him through security. “Sleep in. I’ll see you at home.”

“You’re home,” Chuck murmurs without inflection, and either way Mako chooses to take that, it knocks the breath right out of her. For a long moment she stares at the ceiling and listens to him sleep. Outside the window, snow falls. At last she breathes in, puts her hand in his hair, and shuts her eyes.

 


	2. Practicum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All of them can watch muscles move beneath skin and comprehend, on an intellectual level, how much pressure that hand uses, where the fingers trail, how the palm cups. The same micro-level analytical skills can get any of them through a fight in close combat. But there’s watching, and knowing, and then there’s feeling, and you can copy a given motion all day, but you can’t get the right results if you haven’t been on the receiving end of a gentle touch in seventy years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic keeps growing. HELP ME. THIS WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN.

“I shouldn’t have to teach your ass to be grateful for one of the hottest things I’ve ever--”

Chuck’s gaze flicks from Raleigh to Mako, and he says “Sorry,” maybe a little more sharply than necessary.

“It’s fine,” Mako tells him, and Raleigh takes a deep breath in search of serenity. Technically, Mako was the one who said it to Chuck in the first place, gave him something to throw back at her. Raleigh’s soft spot, his patience, is fathomless for her. Still, he hardly ever yells at either of them. Chuck looks back at Raleigh, wide-eyed, waiting for the consequence of doing something he didn’t know was wrong.

Raleigh chews at the inside of his cheek. “Good,” he decrees at last, which means it’s passable, it will do for now, and that’s the most any of them can hope for, usually. He gestures to the bed. “Can I join you?”

They make room. “You don’t have to ask,” Mako says.

“Yes he does,” Chuck snaps.

“Yes I do,” Raleigh agrees from inside his sweater as he pulls it over his head. After it’s off, he knee-walks across the mattress and lays down between them on his right side, facing Mako. “Touch me like I touch her,” he tells Chuck, and raises his brows at Mako, who nods him on.

Raleigh skims his hand over Mako’s ribs, and then feels a brush of ice when Chuck does it to him. “Switch sides, jerkass.” Chuck, smirking, stands up and steps over him at the same time Mako does, and Raleigh turns over, and when they’re situated in such a way that Chuck can use the hand that isn’t metal, Raleigh lets out a breath and looks into Mako’s eyes again.

The first few times they did this, Raleigh had to use both hands: one for Mako, one for Chuck. All of them can watch muscles move beneath skin and comprehend, on an intellectual level, how much pressure that hand uses, where the fingers trail, how the palm cups. The same micro-level analytical skills can get any of them through a fight in close combat. But there’s watching, and knowing, and then there’s feeling, and you can copy a given motion all day, but you can’t get the right results if you haven’t been on the receiving end of a gentle touch in seventy years.

Now though, Chuck can follow along with finesse, and he’s experienced just how much one can accomplish even before one touches an erogenous zone, how far a bit of warmth can go. Raleigh runs his hand down Mako’s side and Chuck runs his hand down Raleigh’s side and Mako breathes in and Raleigh breathes in. Raleigh’s hand glides across Mako’s belly between navel and scar, and Chuck’s hand ghosts over the small of Raleigh’s back.

Mako has taught herself, over ten years, to respond when something is particularly good. Raleigh responds to more, maybe because more things are good for him or because he wasn’t trained in adolescence to silently endure all manner of physical sensation. He tries to dial it down during instruction, to make Chuck earn each sound, every tensed muscle. Therefore: he’s concentrating very, very hard when he slopes his hand down between Mako’s legs.

Chuck’s hand stills. “Do you want…”

“Yeah,” Raleigh says, and the mattress pops as Chuck half turns to get the bottle by the bed, and Raleigh and Mako both wait while he slicks his hand, and then Mako bends one leg and Raleigh moves his fingers and Chuck moves his fingers and Raleigh’s sigh has a little bit of moan in it, just a little.

Chuck settles his chin on Raleigh’s shoulder to watch, and that will be comfortable so long as none of them move. Raleigh can’t change angles like he planned. That’s all right; he’s adaptable. He brings in a thumb and works on getting Mako close, and then, when her eyelids flutter, eases off. Teasing isn’t usually his thing--giving Mako whatever she wants, that’s his thing, but he guesses Chuck is just a bad influence. Mako makes a sour face at him. It melts when he presses the pad of his thumb against her.

It’s been a minute since Raleigh felt Chuck breathe. When he moves again, he’s not copying Raleigh anymore, and Raleigh would say something, would demand what the fuck, _how the fuck_ , if he had any voice just then. What the fuck. That bastard. How does he _know_ \--

“По часовой стрелке?” Chuck says over Raleigh’s shoulder.

“Если не вы ниже экватора,” Mako deadpans.

 _I can hear you, you shits_. Chuck makes a considering noise, moves his fingers a little faster, and Raleigh whines. It’s well-earned.

“Я делаю это право?”

“Просто посмотрите на его лицо.” And if Chuck does look at him, Raleigh doesn’t know, because he’s got his eyes squeezed shut.

This is not fair. Bastard’s always gotta change the rules. Well.

Raleigh takes his fingers away from Mako’s clit and does the only thing he can think of in that moment that will get Chuck to stop, which is grab Mako’s hips and slide inside of her, ahead of schedule. Mako takes him in without a word, lifting her thigh over Raleigh’s waist.

There are a few seconds where he’s in her and Chuck’s fingers are still moving and Raleigh thinks maybe this will backfire too and the evening will end embarrassingly soon, but as soon as Chuck realizes what just happened, he’s cursing and fumbling behind him again and Raleigh starts to move in Mako as Chuck is still trying to tear open a condom, which as it turns out is not any easier with a metal hand.

Raleigh opens his eyes and Mako’s watching him with the faintest of smiles, and this right now is something Raleigh could do (has been known to do) all night long, soft, slow, just enough to make them both feel good, to keep that warmth. His hand is on her hip but it’s not keeping her there, both of them stay because both of them want to, just like this, no one on top, just her body against his and forget about all night, he could stay here all--

Now that he’s got the condom on, Chuck seems to think he ought to be compensated for lost time. Raleigh hisses, and Mako stops moving her hips, and Chuck stops moving his hips, and Raleigh sees the reflected anxiety on Mako’s face as they look at each other and wait for him to breathe through it.

He understands, or thinks he does, how the Red Room worked. How, after a while, reward and punishment blended together, started to feel the same. He understands, or thinks he does, that they’re here right now like this in part because it’s important to learn to recognize responses from someone with a pain threshold slightly higher than average, rather than inhumanly higher than average. He’s not hurt, not really.

“Warn a guy,” Raleigh says. Out of the corner of his eye, Chuck nods. Raleigh relaxes, but the first one of them to move again is Mako, and Raleigh stays still while she finds what she needs. Her left leg goes slack and then tightens around his waist again, and around the time Raleigh realizes she must have it wrapped around Chuck too, must have her heel hooked behind Chuck’s thigh, that’s when Chuck moves again.

Here, too, unexpectedly, is something Raleigh could do all night: watch Mako get herself off on him, feel Chuck get himself off in him, and not move an inch or give any more instructions, because they’ll take care of him, just as soon as they’re done, with hands and tongues and words in his ear. He could just lie there.

But he can make this better.

Mako has her back arched, hips rolling, her right leg under him now for better leverage. Raleigh leans forward to tongue her breasts, and the angle works for him, too, adds a fullness to the deepest part of Chuck’s thrusts, and he moves with Chuck’s follow-through, which was already an echo of Mako’s rhythm, they do that a lot, even with Raleigh between them, and Mako makes a ragged sound and Raleigh makes one too, mouth open and wet at her nipple. Inches, now, just inches. One good push.

He puts both hands in Mako’s hair, and Chuck, either still making an effort to copy or else seeing an opportunity, takes his hand off Raleigh’s hip and grabs a handful of Raleigh’s hair, no, two handfuls, fuck. Chuck tugs. Raleigh bends his neck as far as he can without letting Mako’s nipple out of his mouth.

“Careful,” Mako stutters, thoughtful even now. Raleigh notes that he is groaning, deep in his chest. This has been established as a response to the kind of pain that qualifies as good, for Raleigh. Chuck doesn’t let go, but he doesn’t pull any harder, either. Raleigh lets the groan build, because Mako’s breath is getting choppier, her thighs are clamping tighter, and her fingernails at the back of Raleigh’s neck are starting to dig. Good pain, from the top of his skull down his spine, and just under Mako’s grip there’s Chuck’s mouth, breath and tongue and moans and teeth between Raleigh’s shoulderblades, and below that he feels no pain.

Ten years with Mako, he knows when she’s close. Ten years with Mako, his body rushes to match her pace, stiffens when she clenches, comes when she comes, cries out when she cries out. Ten years with Mako, usually they both collapse at the same time and sprawl on the sheet, but those ten years it’s been just them, and right now there’s no rest for the weary.

Raleigh can feel her still tremoring around him. Her legs tense, holding him still--is he going somewhere? Not out of her anytime soon, he knows that much. Mako’s hands go up and Raleigh feels them move through his hair, settle over Chuck’s and guide Raleigh’s head forward to rest at her chest. Chuck is only a few seconds behind them; another ten years of practice, they could all get synchronized, knock on wood with a normal hand.

Chuck stops panting against Raleigh’s back, holds his breath and comes stubbornly silent. Raleigh feels Mako’s heartbeat at his brow, feels Chuck let go of his hair, disentangling the fingers of his left hand without getting any strands caught in the segments. Then they’re still, but for the gasping.

Warmth fades; sweat cools. Chuck is the first to move, slipping out of Raleigh, sticking the condom down in the wastebasket, turning on his other side and yanking the comforter up over all of them. He puts his back against Raleigh’s, practical, warm. Tense, too, Raleigh can feel it over his hips, but he can feel just as well that they’ll get no more words from him tonight. They each of them have shit to work out.

Raleigh opens his eyes and moves just enough to look up. Mako watches him from under heavy eyelids, crooks a sleepy smile, moves her hands just enough to gently take out his hearing aids and lay them on the table. He sets a kiss between her breasts and rests his forehead where he can feel her heartbeat through the night. She holds him closer.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation of the Russian exchange, for those on mobile who can't cut and paste it into Google Translate: 
> 
> "Clockwise?"
> 
> "Unless you're below the Equator." 
> 
> "Am I doing this right?"
> 
> "Just look at his face."


	3. On A Wire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Remember where you are,” Mako says as Raleigh’s eyes snap open and his body goes taut. “Remember who you’re with.” Her hand is still on his cheek. “If you trust me, then you trust him, and you’re safe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then I realized these were not random disconnected porny vignettes, but that there was in fact a thematic arc, and they all needed to be chapters in the same fic. God help me.

Even Chuck can tell something’s up.

There’s that one muscle in Becket’s jaw that twitches whenever he’s pissed, and it doesn’t quit on the trip out of debriefing to the garage under Wei Tower, or the whole way back out to the farm in Mako’s Vette.

Something’s up, but damn if he knows what. They’ve flushed out Hydra hives before; this one was as close as it ever gets to a cakewalk.

Once they’re in the house Chuck goes looking for the dog, partly to stay out of the way. He hears the coffeemaker start up, and he hears Mako’s voice, and after ten minutes of fruitless searching he figures Max is probably where the majority of the humans are. Chuck minds the creaking floorboards and peers into the kitchen from the hallway shadows.

Mako has her back to him, leaning against the edge of the dining table. Max has his rear on Mako’s foot, because of course. And Becket’s in a kitchen chair, one hand around a mug, the other scratching Max’s head. The only word for his face is morose.

They talk, too quietly for him to hear. When Mako moves away from the table, Chuck turns to go, but he doesn’t get three steps before she catches his arm. “Tonight,” she says when he faces her and leans down, “you’re Striker. Understand?”

Chuck stands straighter, tilts his head, tries to make sure he does in fact understand. They do codenames, sometimes. That’s never his. According to the file Mako dug up from Kiev, he hasn’t been called Operative Striker, by anyone, in decades. He doesn’t remember a hell of a lot from that far back. He wonders if she does.

Finally, he nods. “Da, Oktober.”

Mako walks past him, and Chuck does not call for Max, but goes instead to take a shower. By the time he’s out, towel around his waist, he can hear Mako and Becket climbing the stairs. Fingers crossed that he wasn’t supposed to dress up for this.

“Becket,” Mako says as they walk in, and the name sounds so different when she says it. She folds the blankets back on the left side of the bed. “Get undressed, and sit down.” To Chuck she adds, in Russian, “Try not to look so delighted. Both of you wait for me.” And then she’s out the door again, before Chuck finishes draining the emotion from his face until all that’s left is the ice and the steel, and he looks at Becket like he’s just another mission.

Then he says, “Relax,” because Becket got undressed and sat on the bed and now he’s watching the bedroom door with that muscle popping on his jaw. “She has my leash.”

Becket spares him a glance that says Chuck is not the thing that’s got him worked up. He’s half-hard though: a good sign. He goes back to watching the door, and after a minute he says, “When the rest of you were clearing the north corridor, I followed that dummy beacon east, right into an ambush. They had an EMP. Knocked out my hearing aids and my goggles. Sasha can see a few extra spectrums though, and when she caught up she did her thing, but. I was down.” He takes a breath. “They had those cuffs…”

“The magnetic ones?” Raleigh nods.

Chuck grits his teeth against an old compulsion. Every Hydra agent that survived the raid that morning is in a holding facility off the coast. He could take Mako’s car back to the city, commandeer a Quinjet, bomb the shit out of the place--

If he were the same person he was a couple years ago, he’d already be gunning the engine.

Raleigh let’s out a sigh. “It’s--”

Mako creaks the stairs, on purpose, because if she didn’t want them to hear her, they wouldn’t. Raleigh shuts his mouth, and Chuck waves to catch his eye, and signs _not stupid_ and _fuck those guys_.

Then Mako opens the door and Raleigh swallows audibly, and Chuck looks over to see why, and she has a silver briefcase in her hand. It could have anything in it, but he can guess, but she wouldn’t, not if he told her. Did Raleigh actually tell Chuck something he didn’t already tell Mako? Mark the bloody calendar.

She hears him swallow, and pauses just inside the door. She glances to Chuck; he slants his eyes away from the bed, and Mako looks back at Raleigh, considering. Mission parameters change all the time, and while her plans are usually solid, she doesn’t get attached to them. Mako sets the case down, outside the bedroom door.

“Striker,” she says. “On the bed. Lose the towel.” Chuck complies, settles on the mattress with Raleigh at his left. “Becket. Lay on your back.” Only when they’re situated the way she wants does she close the bedroom door and shed her black tank. The boots come off as she crosses the floor, but she’s still much too dressed for Chuck’s liking when she sits at the edge of the mattress on the other side of Raleigh.

Chuck checks his face, makes sure none of what he’s thinking has gotten through. This is not about his liking--although, to be fair, Raleigh tends to share his preferences about Mako’s level of nudity.

For a minute they’re all still, a perfect tableau. Mako sets her hand at Raleigh’s cheek, and this is clearly more contact than he expected from her. He leans into it, shuts his eyes. A tremor goes through his arms; of course he wants to touch her, but he won’t, not as long as they’re all in character. This feels about as genuine as that time they pretended they were too cool to try to lift Chernobog.

Mako looks at Chuck, says one word in Russian. He only hesitates an instant.

He puts his left hand on Raleigh’s throat. The outside edge of his palm rests just under the jaw, and his thumb points toward Raleigh’s clavicle. He doesn’t press.

“Remember where you are,” Mako says as Raleigh’s eyes snap open and his body goes taut. “Remember who you’re with.” Her hand is still on his cheek. “If you trust me, then you trust him, and you’re safe.”

Chuck recognizes the look Raleigh wears now. He knows what it is to be grounded by touch, by a voice. “Can you breathe?” Mako asks, and Raleigh does, nostrils flaring. “Can you move?”

Raleigh shoots a look at Chuck. “I’m not gonna try,” he says, hoarse from adrenaline.

She finds this satisfactory, and leans down to kiss him. It doesn’t last long, and despite what Becket just said, he tries to follow when she pulls away. Reminded, he eases back down to the mattress.

Meanwhile, Mako stands and rounds the bed, pushing trousers and underwear off her hips, and Chuck can’t help but be a little surprised when she straddles him. They’ve probably fucked in more awkward arrangements than sitting up with one hand not-exactly-choking a guy. He can’t think of an example just now.

His right hand goes automatically to the clasp of Mako’s bra, but she brushes him off, pins his hand under her knee and sets about doing the things that will get him hard. Not like he was halfway there or anything. Her tongue behind his ear, her fingers around his cock--well, she can feel he’s ready, and she slips down over him, and when Chuck takes a shaky breath she sets a hand on his left arm. He nods against her chest. He hasn’t moved his fingers, and he won’t.

He gets the point. Raleigh trusts Mako, so he trusts Chuck, so he’s safe. They aren’t there yet, the place where Raleigh trusts Chuck no matter what Mako is doing. All these months he’s been living in his house, sharing his bed, it hasn’t been an issue. After this, maybe they’ll be closer to that.

Mako hooks her arm behind his neck and rolls her hips. Even as Chuck lets out a groan, he feels rather than hears the one that works its way out of Becket. Damn straight it’s a sight, and it’s rare enough that he has to just watch, rather than butt in with the touching and the kissing and the complicating something that’s so simple: Mako on top of Chuck, riding him until--

Chuck works his right hand free and grabs at Mako’s waist, has to grab _something_. Feels her muscles, all of them locked. He makes a sound, not sure what kind, doesn’t matter. He’s out of himself for a time, lost in her, the good kind of nothingness that doesn’t involve ice, but his vision’s gone to snow and hearing’s gone to static and there’s nothing else at all in the world but the warmth of her and the scent of her, but that doesn’t mean he’s lost control, because Becket’s still breathing.

Chuck opens his eyes and looks over. Becket appears to get the point.

Mako whispers two more words in Chuck’s ear and climbs off of him, and Chuck licks his lips, then leans over to take Raleigh’s cock in his mouth. Raleigh tenses again, something like panic, and Chuck looks to where Mako is using his towel to clean herself, and she nods once.

He presses on Raleigh’s throat.

This could be taken the wrong way, but what Mako asked of Chuck outside the kitchen was to follow orders, and still know when to shut it down, to have some initiative. They took a step forward just now. There’s further to go, and Chuck doesn’t think it’s too soon.

So: a little pressure, and Raleigh gasps, but he doesn’t take it the wrong way. It’s not that he relaxes, more that he turns the tension around, starts pushing his hips up. Chuck pushes a huffing approximation of a laugh out through his nose, wills himself to not choke on the tip of Raleigh’s cock. When he looks at Mako again, she’s smiling. This is probably a sight, too. Hell, it’s not bad from close up, either--Becket’s workout routine involves a trapeze.

After a minute Chuck lifts his hand, but Raleigh _actually whines_ , so Chuck puts it back, and picks up the pace. The whine turns into a moan, and Raleigh’s abs clench, and Chuck presses a fraction harder. He holds on until Raleigh fills his mouth, only lets go after the last spasm.

Without anything keeping him in place, Becket turns on his side, hands over his eyes, and Chuck hopes he’s not crying or something. Mako, still leaning against the far wall, says his name, and Becket answers, “I’m fine, just let me…” He breathes deep through his nose.

Chuck swallows and puts his hand on Becket’s shoulder, and Becket grabs his wrist (not crying, thank God, just working through something), holds on for a minute, then squeezes and lets go. Some of the red has faded from his face. He opens his eyes, and they focus at once across the room. “What about you?” he says to Mako.

She looks the two of them over and she is, Chuck thinks, pleased. She turns her back on them, goes to the bedroom door, opens it and bends down. When she turns around, the case is in her hand. Jesus.

“Up, please,” she says, and they get up, and she sets the case at the end of the bed and then climbs onto the mattress, sits with her ankles crossed, looks at both of them one more time, and closes her eyes.

Chuck’s pulse thuds in his ears. He takes a step forward, reaches out, pops the catches on the case. It holds exactly what he expected. There are four cuffs, maybe five if the case’s handle detaches, and one remote to release them. But anyway, the bed’s too long to use all four, and he can’t even imagine why they’d need five--

Oh. Yes he can.

But if they were all cuffed in some fashion, they’d probably knock the remote onto the floor and then they’d be screwed; Max is not Lassie. Chuck would really hate to have to break the bedframe. He puts that thought out of his mind and looks back at Becket. _What do we do?_ he signs.

 _What she wants_ , Raleigh signs back, and that is, after all, what they’ve been doing all evening.

The cuffs adjust automatically when they’re on. Tight enough to hold Mako’s slender wrists; not so tight that they cut off circulation. Chuck closes one around her left wrist as Raleigh does the right. He’s never been so glad his arm is non-ferrous.

The electromagnets connect with the wrought iron bedframe just above the mattress, loudly. Mako doesn’t flinch, doesn’t open her eyes, just leans back on the pillows they set up for her, and waits.

They regroup at the foot of the bed. _B-R-A_ , Raleigh signs, and facepalms. Chuck shakes his head, gestures at Mako with raised brows to indicate he wouldn’t change a thing about how this looks. Raleigh shrugs; fair enough. He nods at her, spreads his hands over himself twice to indicate waist-up and waist-down, holds out his hands like a balance scale. Chuck points at Raleigh and makes the universal sign for cunnilingus. Raleigh makes the universal sign for _up yours_ , but he doesn’t argue.

Chuck sits on Mako’s right, and runs the back of his right hand over her cheek. She turns her face toward him, eyebrows up. He kisses her eyelids. He can do saccharine too, watch him--or don’t, because no one is, Mako isn’t looking and Raleigh is working his way up from the soles of her feet, touching her with nothing but his mouth and his right hand, whatever, that’s his business.

He cups the left side of her face in his hand, looks at her in the half-light. He thinks he understands what it takes for her to do this, but he probably really doesn’t. Mako was trained for the kind of work that requires a certain measure of vulnerability, and he wasn’t--

No, that’s not fair, and he presses a kiss to the corner of her jaw, brushes up to her ear. Mako was trained to survive in compromising situations, but all that training and all that experience in the field was, by necessity, the opposite of trust. She has only of late been practicing vulnerability with the knowledge that no one nearby will take advantage of her.

And don’t think about what _that_ means. Kiss her, you jerk. He does, everywhere but her mouth because she’d know who’s who then. Actually, a glance over his shoulder reveals that Raleigh’s up to the top of her thighs, and she’ll know as soon as he puts his tongue on her, so, hell with it. Chuck leans his head against hers, counts down until he estimates Raleigh is going in, and then he kisses Mako. She inhales sharply through her nose, and he hears Raleigh hum.

“This is cute and all,” Becket says a minute later, “but I want to see her face when she comes.”

“Which means there’s _plenty of time_ ,” Chuck replies. He figures Becket’s signing something at him again, but he doesn’t look, just reaches up with his left hand to yank Mako’s bra strap off her shoulder. She shivers. He frees both breasts and attends to them, watches the muscles jump in her arms and shoulders and stomach. Becket’s moving double-time now, and regardless of the taunting, Mako will probably only last another couple minutes.

When she lets her head fall back against the pillows, Chuck only hesitates an instant.

He runs his tongue up from her breasts and over the length of her throat, and then settles his left hand under her chin, not pressing. Not yet. Mako’s eyelids flutter and her hips hitch enough to upset Raleigh’s rhythm, but he finds it again quick enough, and Chuck puts his mouth on her nipple again. When she starts to pant, to push herself into Raleigh’s mouth as best she can with her arms behind her, Chuck presses.

The shape her lips make is too magnificent; he has to kiss them again. It’s awkward to work around the arm, and she bites him when she comes, but it’s worth it.

“Damnit,” Becket says as he wipes his face with the sheet. Chuck smirks at him. Mako opens her eyes, and Chuck lets go of her throat. Now he’s sure she’s pleased, that he did well.

“See?” Mako says, flexing her arms against the cuffs. “These things aren’t so bad.” Raleigh mulls it over, but finally nods, and Mako smiles the satisfied smile of a woman whose day started with explosions and ended with orgasms for all. “Where’s the remote?”

Chuck looks at Raleigh. Raleigh looks at Chuck. Mako surely sees right through them both. Neither one of them can act their way out of a paper bag, but they try. Before Raleigh can relax his stricken face and reach for the case, Mako says, “Oh. Well, if I’m going to be stuck here for a while, I guess it’s Chuck’s turn.”

He’s not going to argue.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Christmas, somethingsomething!


End file.
